Intelligent Navigation Systems for Building Evacuation

Intelligent navigation systems can significantly improve the evacuation of civilians in urban emergencies by providing dynamic directions to the evacuees as the hazard spreads. In this paper, we propose two distributed and adaptive systems for building evacuation. The first system, called intelligent evacuation system (IES), is composed of a wireless network of static decision nodes (DNs) installed in the building which provide movement decision support to evacuees by directing them to exits via less hazardous routes. The second system, called opportunistic communications based evacuation system (OCES), is based on mobile communication nodes (CNs) carried by civilians, which form an opportunistic network to exchange information on the situation and provide directions to civilians. We evaluate our systems’ performance with simulation experiments of a three-floor office building. Our results indicate that both systems can greatly improve the outcome of an emergency.